As you are aware we started looking into the Illinois Auxiliary Police which is no longer and Illinois Police Reserves. We would like to inform you of what we found thus far. When you go to WWW.ILPR.ORG as we did we found out that there is no information about their bike team,or Rapid Response yes that's right a Rapid Response team. We noticed Palos Hills Response Team vehicle in the picture with their officers. There is a brief description on the color / honor guard. The news portion is for officer information such as dress code for up coming events and general orders. The website says they are at 2735 W. 71st Chicago but back in 2010 they had an address of 5215 S. Archer Chicago, but we also noticed that the address also belonged to Homeland Security Services LLC. So now the question is are they a security firm or a police academy. Well we asked IPR and a Timothy Andrew went on the record saying they are not police and are not permitted to carry a firearm unless the police departments sign off accepting full liability. Wooooo what! They carry guns hmmmm so we checked and found pictures witch we attached that show they carry guns so we checked with the state and Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulations and both do not show any firearms license to train or for their officers to carry. So the question is who trains them in weapon retention, safety, weapon control, and requal and summit passing range targets to the state? A former member stated that the IPR is a 501 C 3 which is a charity organization. But further more IPR informs their officers they have a power of arrest under 65 ILCS 5/3.1-30-20. Funny we read the statue it is for elected officials.
Now comes the best news yet the Village of Summit park district pays for them to train. But the even better part is there was an off duty Orland Park cop who walked in to a bank and a security officer challenged him while the officer was wearing a polo shirt with his badge and name on the front and POLICE on the back. This gets better the security officer pulls out his badge and says he is a cop but the badge says IPR on it. Shortly after Orland Park Police cut ties and filed a beef with the state back in early 2010.
A further investigation shows that Joe Kulys a Commander and media affairs officer for IPR collects a pension from Waste Management. So we reached out to Christian Vining and Officer Miranda for comments and received no answer.
So the question remains
1 Are they police?
2 Who does their fire arm classes as to state mandates?
3 how can lawfully carry a firearm?
4 Are they security or police?
5 why do the tax payers pay this organization to train when we pay our police for that?
6 when carrying a firearm are they carrying under a security company's Firearm Control Card ?
7 Are they elected officials? If not why are they using the power of arrest as an elected official when they hold no political office.
8 We takes care of the medical bills and workers compensation if they get hurt while working?
Our thought on this is are they using a 501 tax code to invade income tax. They also have their officers pay for a 300 hour course that according to the Illinois police Training Institute is not a legal or recognized trainning. But IDPFR states the training sounds like un armed security but not a security firm licensed by the state. Yep that's right they have no blue card and no fcc registered with IDPFR nor a licensed security business so we know they are not security and Lisa Madigan's office states they are not police and has launched an investigation which is on going. We can't mention but if you read into it the way we have it sounds like extortion and income tax evasion on top of impersonation of a police officer.
We can't tell you what to do but at least your informed before getting involved because at this point WOTSM feels that IPR is a safety concern to the police, and the public as Noone can answer the questions.
